by Maxey, Phil
“Name’s Rob, these are my two brothers, Earl and Tyler,” said Rob before Zach had a chance to reply. “If you don’t mind we’re going to get some rest.”
“No, not at all, not sure if there will be any room upstairs but grab whatever bedding you can find in the cupboards and stairs and make a bed wherever you want,” said Brad. Rob forced a tired smile and led his two weary eyed brothers up the stairs.
Raj stood looking awkward. “This is Dr. Joshi,” said Zach.
“Please just Raj.
“Ah, you’re the scientist I keep hearing about. Nice to meet you.” Brad shook Raj’s hand enthusiastically.
“Do you mind if I find a corner to sleep in as well, it’s just it’s been a long day.”
“No, please do, maybe we can have a chat tomorrow.”
“That would be good.” Raj wasn’t sure about the request, but smiled and walked up the stairs, just leaving Zach, Abbey and Brad.
“Let’s have a chat in here.” Brad led them into the living room. Abbey went to sit down but then sat in a different chair when she realized that’s where Ray sat last time. “Neither of you are on medication right?” Zach and Abbey both said no. “I was sorry to hear about Ray. He was a grumpy old so and so, but from what I heard he was also a hero,” said Brad pouring some golden brown spirit into two glasses.
“Dee wouldn’t have made it, without Ray stepping up,” said Zach, Abbey looked sad.
“Some kind of amphibian E.L.F?”
“Yeah, hundreds of them, surrounded us, if it wasn’t for the chopper from Bravo we wouldn’t of made it out either, but they got Ray,” said Zach taking a mouthful of his drink.
“What’s life like in the camp? When the General told me you had basically volunteered to form a unit to help find survivors, I told her there’s no better people for the job.”
“I appreciate that,” Zach smiled. “It’s… have you been?”
“Can’t say I have, but from the images the General has sent to me, it’s pretty impressive what they have pulled off there, keeping all those millions of people not only alive but fed and watered… especially as soon it’s going to be the last camp.”
“We haven’t really been there long enough to say, but people are getting on with their lives and after everything that has happened…”
“Yeah. And now you folks are going to travel across the country and rescue what’s left of the Portland camp...that’s umm not going to be an easy task. When I heard the plan from Trow I must admit I was surprised.”
“She had no choice.”
Brad took his glasses off and rubbed his face. “There’s a whole lot of bad news between here and Portland Zach.” He then put his glasses back on. “I’ve heard reports of the giant arthropods, they usually stick to water, almost impossible to kill.”
“We killed one, although it took a rocket launcher and a shit ton of fire power. They can also move quick when they want too. Hopefully we won’t run into anymore. The General sent some supplies along for you as well, they are still in the truck.”
“If you want I’ll take a look over your route, maybe I can help you avoid any areas you don’t want to be in?”
“Sure” Zach opened his backpack and pulled the rolled up map out and handed it to Brad, it was then he realized that Abbey had fallen asleep with her head resting on the arm of the sofa next to him.
“I’ll get some blankets, you’ll be sleeping here too?” Zach nodded.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Zach opened his eyes, light was streaming through tiny gaps in Brad’s wood defenses and Abbey was asleep on his shoulder. The sliding doors to the hallway were closed but he could hear voices in the rooms beyond. He closed his eyes. For a moment it was easy to believe that he and Abbey were in a Victorian bed and breakfast, lost in the wilds somewhere. The sunbeams warmed his legs and he smiled. Slowly and begrudgingly he reopened his eyes. Getting up slowly so not to wake Abbey, he stretched then moved out into the hallway closing the doors behind as quietly as he could. He walked into the kitchen, which was filled with soldiers and Dr. Tanner making breakfast.
“Hey the doctor’s a real good cook,” said Martinez with his mouth full.
“Do you want some?” Dr. Tanner lifted her pan in Zach’s direction.
“I’m good thanks, anyone seen Brad?”
“I believe he’s downstairs with Dr. Joshi.”
As Zach was walking down the stairs to the basement he could already hear the excited voices.
“Zach! Brad has collected some really useful data on the Cascade.” Raj and Brad were standing in front of one of Brad’s walls of newspaper clippings, diagrams and flow charts.
Brad a looked a little embarrassed. “Oh I just have that kind of mind, I like to record things, there’s usually something in that data that will come in handy.”
“No, you’re totally right,” said Raj taking a sip on his coffee.
“Did you get a chance to go through our route?”
“I did.” Brad walked over to his computer desk and sat. On the monitor in front of him was the route from the map. “I plotted your route onto this computer map, and overlaid it with latest sightings of E.L.F’s.”
“Do you think we should go a different way?”
“Actually no, it seems whoever worked out the route did a good job, but I’ve updated it with my latest data anyway and printed out a new version. Raj, do you mind if me and Zach had a few moments?”
“Oh, right, sure no problem.”
Brad waited for Raj to close the basement door and walk up a few steps before talking. “Zach, there are a lot of E.L.F’s between here and Portland, the ones I’ve marked on the map, are just the ones we know about, there’s probably many more we don’t. This Raj guy seems to have a good head on his shoulders, but science isn’t going to help you when you have a five-ton arthropod coming after you, or a pack of those wolf things. I know Trow means well, but she’s not seeing the bigger picture, and it’s not good for you and your people if you attempt this rescue.”
Zach sat on Brad’s bed. “So we just give up on the Portland people?”
“I’m saying, if you do this, there’s a good chance not only the Portlander’s will be dead, but you as well.” An awkward silence fell upon the basement, and was broken by the sound of General Trow’s voice interspersed with crackling on Brad’s radio. Brad picked up the mike, while Zach picked up the newly printed out map and started to head back upstairs. Brad responded to the General and then turned to say something to Zach but he had already gone.
Jacob thumbed through a copy of the book “Advanced Calculus” and smiled. He found a similar book when he was thirteen. The day was icy cold, kind of day that made your nose and lungs burn. He was outside playing hooky from school with his friends. The same friends that used to rag on him for being weird and different, so he stopped trying to talk to them about space and mechanical things and pretended to be like them, interested in music and girls. But then on that same cold day he found this book behind a park bench. Probably fell out of some students bag, and at first it just looked like some foreign language to him, but the more he read it the more he understood, until he understood all of it, and he got bored. So he joined the public library and took out books about math. Each month devouring as many as he could. The people at the library used to look at him funny, but the old lady there, Hilary Grantham took him under her wing, and allowed him to take out more books than he should. She was good people. It was a shame what happened to her thought Jacob. He closed the book hard, and a small puff of dust floated then fell onto a well-worn rose-colored rug. He was tired of being someone else.
Michael appeared at the door of the small room. “Hey, Zach wants us all downstairs, a.s.a.p.”
Brad’s newly printed map consisted of four A3 panels, stuck together, and as everyone waited for the last few people to squeeze into the living room area, was laid out flat on the coffee table with last night’s glasses being used to hold it down. Brad, Zach, Abbey, Bass, Dr. Tan
ner were sitting closest to the table, with everyone else a few feet further away either standing or sitting on available chairs. The last few people arrived in the room, and Zach cleared his throat.
“I want everyone to take a good long hard look at this map and what’s marked on it,” Most people in the room leaned forward to get a better look. “On it marked in red are areas of high E.L.F activity. Brad has even put in a number next to those areas indicating the page number in the E.L.F book we all carry around, so you can identify what we’re up against if we run into them. If it’s marked with a question mark, that means we don’t know what the hell it is.” Some of the soldiers shifted restlessly on their feet. “As you can see it’s pretty clear running from here until we get to Albuquerque.”
Martinez stepped forward. “I used to live in Albuquerque I know it pretty well, I might know better ways through the city when we are closer to it.”
“Good. Once we are through Albuquerque it should be clear until we make it to a small town called San Poleo, which is close to where the reservations used to be. There should be some people there to give us shelter and help us with resupplying. From there we cross between northern Arizona and Utah, ending up back in the southwest of Utah in a town south of their national park. We meet up with more people, resupply you know the drill. From there it’s all Nevada. We head north until we end up in a small town in the north of the state called Celagro. We resupply there before heading into Oregon. Then it’s another small town, then it’s the final part of the journey to the camp. And I won’t lie to you the final part is going to be hard. There’s no way to avoid a lot of areas with high E.L.F’s activity, hopefully what’s left of the Portland defense forces can give us some cover.”
“Have we got enough vehicles? Sir,” said a tall, slim mousey haired young soldier.
“What’s your name?”
“Private Hall. Sir.”
“Your whole name?”
“Jaden, Jaden Hall, Sir.”
“Well that’s a good question, Jaden. Word has been sent ahead to Portland for them to try to rustle up as many buses and coaches as they can find, but if we can find more between here and there we will. Dr. Joshi you wanted to say some things?”
Raj stepped forward, pushing apologetically past a soldier. “Yes, thank you Zach. Like Zach just said, the E.L.F’s we are likely to encounter are marked on the map by the page number in your finders that you all should have. Read up on these creatures before we get to those areas. Not all, but some do have known weaknesses which I have written about in the book,” he then held up his copy of the book. “This little book could save your life.” He then stepped back slightly. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Bass, how’s the ammo and supplies looking?”
“We should have enough food and water to last us about fourteen days. We lost maybe a half a days of food and some water, when we lost the bus yesterday. We got plenty of ammo, but it all depends on how much of it we use getting to where we need to go.”
“Rob, meet Corporal Greggs, she’s an engineer.”
A stocky blonde haired woman raised her hand. “Hi.’
“I’ve been informed she knows her shit, so you and her need to work together to make sure these vehicles stay running.”
Greggs stepped forward and shook Robs hand. “Looking forward to working with you,” said Greggs in a strong Virginian accent. Rob smiled a tentative smile in return.
“Right, we move out in twenty.”
The room started to clear, and Zach went to pick up the map but Brad put his hand back down on it.
“Hold up,” Brad got out a pen. “Alyssa and Brandon Burford, they used to run a preppers shop in Oregon. Their place is a bit out of your way, but if you run into problems, that’s their names and location on the map.”
“How do you know they are still alive?”
Brad smiled. “If there’s one couple that could survive the apocalypse it’s them.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After Brad’s supplies were dropped off, Rob and Corporal Greggs gave the vehicles the once over and refueled. The convoy then took side roads to avoid Main Street and were on the 285, heading north out of Roswell in the morning sun. Fiona and Cal had claimed the Humvee at the back for themselves to drive. Apart from that the convoy formation was the same as before. Fiona’s bandage was now removed just leaving some butterfly stitches, which she kept trying not to scratch.
“You haven’t told me your thoughts on this rescue mission of ours,” she said.
“If that’s what the higher-ups think is right, who are we to argue…” Cal put his hand to his temple.
“Still got the headaches?”
“Yeah, and I keep having weird dreams, I’m in the middle of a desert,” Cal looked to his right. “Not too unlike this one, and there’s this person there, but I can never get a good look at them, and they just say ‘Tell Arclight we accepted.’ I dunno.”
“Maybe the doc can give you something to sleep.”
“I probably just need to not see desert for longer than an hour.”
Fiona smiled.
Raj was busily writing in his journal but had the feeling he was being watched. Looking up he could see Tyler quickly look away.
“It’s Tyler, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You would like to know what I’m writing?”
Tyler smiled and looked embarrassed. “Ah, well it’s not really my business.”
“No it’s fine. I’m just writing thoughts on the discussions I had with Mr. Crenshaw.” Raj’s expression changed to one looking slightly lost. “It’s funny that the scientific community got it all so wrong, and the pseudo-scientific community got it so right.”
“That accent, you Australian or something?” said Earl who was sitting with his back to the side window and his legs stretched out along the seat.
“Err, no it’s English, I was born in an area of England called Cambridgeshire. Parents were from Mumbai.”
“Mumbai, that’s also in England?”
“Ha, no that’s India,” Joshi smiled and putt his head back into his journal.
The convoy sped through miles after miles of flat desert stretching out in all directions.
“It’s good to be making progress,” said Zach not particularly aimed at anyone in the Humvees Cabin. Jacob was looking out the side window, while Michael was drifting off to sleep next to him.
“I never knew there was so much desert in our country,” said Abbey.
Zach smiled. “Not much of this up in Boston.”
“No…” Before Abbey could finish her thought, Bass’s voice came from Zach’s radio.
“We got a problem, one of the RV’s has a flat. We have to stop. Over.”
Zach swore, shaking his head slightly and pulling the Humvee over to a sandy strip on the side of the highway. “All stop. Over.”
“I’ll help them change the tire,” said Rob pausing then continuing. “Over.”
“Michael, back on the gun,” said Zach. “To the other Humvees, man your guns as well. And watch the skies. Over.”
As Rob helped the soldier change the tire, some of the other soldiers got out of their vehicles to stretch their legs and chat.
Raj briefly looked up then continued writing. Earl kicked Tyler’s leg and sniggered.
“Stop. Earl, I need to keep watch.” Earl continued.
Raj looked up at the two brothers fighting and smiled, he too had a younger brother. The last time he had seen Jay was two years ago, for his brothers eighteenth. His parents had thrown Jay a big celebration in the local hall, and he had flown back from his doing his Ph.D. in Stanford to be there. He used to tease his brother as well, although his mother was always scalding him for doing so. Raj looked on lost in his memories of his past when he noticed something beyond Tyler, a few miles off in the desert. A rock shaped lump sat on the desert ground, Raj couldn’t remember seeing that when they stopped the convoy. Grabbing his binoculars he turned
the middle dial and focused in on the strange form. It was still difficult to tell how big it was, but it looked more like a lump with sloping edges than a boulder when viewed through the binoculars. Raj scanned left and right, stopping when he saw another larger one a few hundred yards to the right of the first. He took the binoculars down, now there were two more to the left of the first and second, slightly further back. Raj rubbed his eyes.
“Tyler?”
“Yes?”
“Look out the left side behind you, about a mile off in the distance, can you see those small dunes, or hills in the desert?” Tyler turned on his seat and strained his eyes.
“Yes, why?”
“Keep watching them.”
Raj then picked up his radio. “Zach, you there. Over.”
“I’m here, Raj. Over.”
“How long do you think it will be before we get moving again?”
“Not too long, maybe another ten minutes, why?”
“Because if we’re here any longer I think we’re going to have a problem. Look out the left side, would be about 9 o’clock for you. Over.”
“Hmm, I don’t remember seeing them when we were driving. Over.”
“I don’t think they’re part of the desert. Over.”
Bass’s voice then came through the radio. “Hey Captain, I don’t mean to sound crazy, but there’s these weird looking rocks about three hundred yards off our right, weird because…”
“Rob, what’s the status on the tire. Over.”
“More of a problem than we thought, the tire blew because the axel is not aligned properly, I’m putting a new tire on but it will probably b…”
“Rob, get the tire on as quickly as you can, we are soon going to have company, look out into the desert.”
Rob turned and looked. Ten or more large rock like things with sloped sides were about a hundred yards away from the RV’s. “What the fuck.” He then quickly turned and started putting the new tire on, placing and tightening the nuts as quickly as he could.
Raj held his binoculars as steady as he could, resting his shoulders on the top of the bus’s seat and focusing on one of the strange rock like forms.